Gold Mountain defines high-priority rare earths targets at Down Under project
Gold Mountain (ASX: GMN) has defined a series of high-priority drill targets at its Down Under project in Brazil’s Bahia state after confirming key pathfinders for high-grade rare earth element (REE) anomalies.
The targets are located in an area with highly-anomalous stream sediment samples and radiometric responses reported to be in close proximity to the Tres Baços deposit owned by Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX: BRE), which has a resource estimate of 91.9 million tonnes grading 815 parts per million REE and has a market cap of ~$750m compared to Gold Mountain’s $10m.
The samples are believed to have compared favourably with geochemical samples previously collected from known ionic clay hosted (IAC) mineralised catchments.
Auger drilling
An initial auger drilling program of 1,980 metres has been designed to cover anomalous catchment areas and radiometric anomalous areas at the Teolândia and Wenceslau Guimarães targets over the coming months.
Gold Mountain will use a hand-portable powered auger rig to recover approximately 8 kilograms of samples per metre.
The samples will be analysed for multi-elements and high-value intersections will be subject to preliminary metallurgical testing to confirm the mineralisation as being IAC or monazite.
Stream sediment sampling will continue until all targets are covered and heavy mineral sampling programs will commence on select sites to test for monazite content.
“We have been really encouraged by the results of our greenfields exploration at the Down Under project, which shows outstanding potential for new high-grade rare earth discoveries along the geological and structural trends that host this world-class province,” the company said.
“The results of our sampling activities are incomplete but, so far, the results have been very positive.”
Geophysical work
Earlier this month, Gold Mountain announced it had received an initial batch of 260 stream sediment samples from the Down Under project and conducted 85km of detailed geophysical traversing on selected roads and tracks over regional radiometric anomalies.
Extensive REE anomalous catchments were identified, with many forming contiguous highly anomalous catchments over strike distances of up to 8km.
Significant areas of potential IAC and ultra-high grade hard rock mineralisation were inferred from geochemical results, radiometric traversing and observations of the thick weathering profile.
Gold Mountain had previously collected a total of 61 stream sediment samples from Down Under, indicating the potential for ultra-high grade monazite-hosted rare earth-niobium-uranium-scandium mineralisation.
Ronaldinho update
Gold Mountain has also completed initial stream sediment sampling at the Ronaldinho project, approximately 110km north-west of Down Under.
A total of 234 samples were collected in three weeks from areas around previously identified radiometric anomalies.
“The well-preserved to partially-eroded laterite profiles suggest good preservation of any IAC REE deposits which may be present,” the company reported.
Auger drilling into the Ronaldinho saprolite zone has been planned for late August, once sampling results have been received and a second drill rig has been delivered to the site.